Vaes Aresak (Ibbish)

Before it was called Vaes Aresak, the city was known as Ibbish and stood at the head of the territories the Ibbenese held beyond their own island, a domain larger and richer than Ib itself. It rose beside a forest bordering the lands of the Ifequevron, not far from the islands of Ib and Far Ib, and to its west New Ibbish would later be built.

Men from Ib crossed the sea to seek their fortune in its fields and mines. What had begun as a fishing village grew into a thriving port behind high white walls, and it came to rank as the second city of the whole Ibbenese people.

When the Century of Blood came, Dothraki khalasars began raiding the coast the Ibbenese governed. The first attacks fell on farms and fields, but the Ibbenese were a stubborn, moneyed people who chose steel over tribute, and for years they held the riders off, including a victory still remembered over Khal Onqo.

The resistance did not last forever. Rival khals competed for the glory of breaking the city, until Khal Scoro finally forced his way through the Whalebone Gates. His riders looted temples and storehouses and carried the city's idols all the way to Vaes Dothrak.

The city rose again, but a generation later Khal Rogo sacked it once more, burning half the city and carrying off ten thousand women as slaves. When Khal Dhako, Onqo's grandson, arrived meaning to plunder it in turn, he found no one left: its people had fled before the riders came.

Angered at having no one to fight, Dhako put what remained of the city to the torch, along with much of the surrounding land, earning himself the name Dragon of the North. It was that flight which led the Dothraki to name the ruins Vaes Aresak, the city of cowards.